Elisabeth Schwarzkopf

Dame Olga Maria Elisabeth Friederike Schwarzkopf, (; 9 December 1915 – 3 August 2006) was a German-born Austro-British lyric soprano. She was among the foremost singers of lieder, and is renowned for her performances of Viennese operetta, as well as the operas of Mozart, Wagner and Richard Strauss. After retiring from the stage, she was a voice teacher internationally. She is considered one of the greatest sopranos of the 20th century.

Early life

Schwarzkopf was born on 9 December 1915 in Jarotschin in the Province of Posen in Prussia, Germany (now in Poland), to Friedrich Schwarzkopf and his wife, Elisabeth (). Schwarzkopf performed in her first opera in 1928, as Eurydice in a school production of Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice in Magdeburg, Germany. In 1934, Schwarzkopf began her musical studies at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik, where her singing tutor, Lula Mysz-Gmeiner, attempted to train her to be a mezzo-soprano. Schwarzkopf later trained under Maria Ivogün, and in 1938 joined the Deutsche Oper.

Early career

In 1933, shortly after the Nazis came to power, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf's father, a local school headmaster, was dismissed from his position by the new ruling authorities for having refused to allow a Nazi party meeting at his school. He was also banned from taking any new teaching post. Until Friedrich Schwarzkopf's dismissal, the probability was that the 17-year-old Elisabeth would have studied medicine after passing her Abitur; but now, as the daughter of a banned school teacher, she was not allowed to enter university and she commenced music studies at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik. Schwarzkopf made her professional debut at the Deutsche Oper Berlin (then called Deutsches Opernhaus) on 15 April 1938, as the Second Flower Maiden (First Group) in act 2 of Richard Wagner's Parsifal. In 1940 Schwarzkopf was awarded a full contract with the Deutsches Opernhaus, a condition of which was that she had to join the Nazi party.

Since the theme was brought up in the dissertation of the Austrian historian Oliver Rathkolb in 1982, the question of Schwarzkopf's relationship with the Nazi Party has been discussed repeatedly in the media and in literature. There was criticism that Schwarzkopf, not only in the years immediately after the war but also in confrontation with revelations made in the 1980s and 1990s, made contradictory statements, including in regard to her membership in the NSDAP (Member No. 7,548,960). At first, she denied this and then with varying explanations defended it. In one version, for example, she claimed that she joined the party only at the insistence of her father who, himself, had earlier lost his position as school principal after forbidding a Nazi program in the school.

Further publications discussed her musical performances during the war before Nazi party conferences and for units of the Waffen-SS.

In 1942, she was invited to sing with the Vienna State Opera, where her roles included Konstanze in Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Musetta and later Mimì in Puccini's La bohème and Violetta in Verdi's La traviata.

Schwarzkopf sang four brief cameo roles in films produced by Reich Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels, but she was a voice, not a film star. her American opera debut was with the San Francisco Opera on 20 September 1955 as the Marschallin, and her debut at the Metropolitan Opera on 13 October 1964, also as the Marschallin.

thumb|upright|Schwarzkopf as the Marschallin in Richard Strauss' [[Der Rosenkavalier]]

In March 1946, Schwarzkopf was invited to audition for Walter Legge, an influential British classical record producer and a founder of the Philharmonia Orchestra. Legge asked her to sing Hugo Wolf's lied Wer rief dich denn? and, impressed, signed her to an exclusive contract with EMI. They began a close partnership and Legge subsequently became Schwarzkopf's manager and companion. They were married on 19 October 1953 in Epsom, Surrey; Schwarzkopf thus acquired British citizenship by marriage. Schwarzkopf would divide her time between lieder recitals and opera performances for the rest of her career. When invited in 1958 to select her eight favourite records on the BBC's Desert Island Discs, Schwarzkopf chose seven of her own recordings, and an eighth of Karajan conducting the Rosenkavalier prelude, as they evoked fond memories of the people she had worked with.

In the 1960s, Schwarzkopf concentrated nearly exclusively on five operatic roles: Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, Countess Almaviva in The Marriage of Figaro, Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte, Countess Madeleine in Strauss's Capriccio, and the Marschallin. She was also well received as Alice Ford in Verdi's Falstaff. However, on the EMI label she made several "champagne operetta" recordings like Franz Lehár's The Merry Widow and Johann Strauss II's The Gypsy Baron.

Schwarzkopf's last operatic performance was as the Marschallin on 31 December 1971, in the theatre of La Monnaie in Brussels. For the next several years, she devoted herself exclusively to lieder recitals. On 17 March 1979, Walter Legge suffered a severe heart attack. He disregarded doctor's orders to rest and attended Schwarzkopf's final recital two days later in Zurich. Three days later, he died.

Retirement and death

thumb|Grave in Zumikon

After retiring (almost immediately after her husband's death), Schwarzkopf taught and gave master classes around the world, notably at the Juilliard School in New York City. After living in Ascona, Switzerland, for many years, she took up residence in Austria. She was made a doctor of music by the University of Cambridge in 1976, and became a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 1992.

Schwarzkopf died in her sleep during the night of 2–3 August 2006 at her home in Schruns, Vorarlberg, Austria, aged 90. Her ashes, and those of Walter Legge, were buried next to her parents in Zumikon near Zürich, where she had lived from 1982 to 2003.

Legacy

Her discography is considerable both in quality and in quantity and is distinguished for her Mozart and Richard Strauss operatic portrayals, her two commercial recordings of Strauss's Four Last Songs and her recordings of lieder, especially those of Wolf.

Schwarzkopf is generally considered to have been the greatest German lyric soprano of the twentieth century and one of the finest Mozart singers of all time with an "indescribably beautiful" voice.

Schwarzkopf's entry in The Grove Book of Opera Singers concludes: "Although she dismissed her [Nazi Party] membership as a professional necessity, her reputation has remained tarnished by what seems to have been an active party membership." Charles Scribner III, writing in The New Criterion, has defended Schwarzkopf's party affiliation on the grounds that she was the daughter of an anti-Nazi dissident living in constant fear of the authorities.

Quotations

(After being asked about Peter Sellars) "There are names I do not want mentioned in my home. Do not say that name in my presence. I have seen what he has done, and it is criminal. As my husband used to say, so far no one has dared go into the Louvre Museum to spray graffiti on the Mona Lisa, but some opera directors are spraying graffiti over masterpieces." – Newsweek interview, 15 October 1990
"Many composers today don't know what the human throat is. At Bloomington, Indiana, I was invited to listen to music written in quarter tones for four harps and voices. I had to go out to be sick." – Newsweek interview, 15 October 1990
(Asked in 1995 if she would sing in the cultural climate of the 1990s if she were much younger) "It's a kind of prostitution now. There is nobody I envy. There's a disintegration of integrity in our profession."

Recordings

Recital at Carnegie Hall (1956), EMI in "Great Performances of the Century", 1989

Bach

St Matthew Passion (Klemperer), Philharmonia Orchestra (Warner Classics 1961)

Brahms

A German Requiem (Klemperer), Philharmonia Orchestra (Warner Classics 1961)

Humperdinck

Hänsel und Gretel (Karajan) (1953) Naxos 8.110897-98

Lehár

Das Land des Lächelns (Ackermann) (1953) and excerpts from Lehár Operettas Naxos 8.111016-17
Die lustige Witwe (Kunz, Gedda) (1953) Naxos 8.111007

Mozart

Don Giovanni (Carlo Maria Giulini, Philharmonia Orchestra) (Warner Classics 1959) with Joan Sutherland as Donna Anna. For details, see Don Giovanni (Giulini recording).
Le nozze di Figaro (Carlo Maria Giulini, Philharmonia Orchestra) (Warner Classics 1959). For details, see Le Nozze di Figaro (Giulini 1959 recording)
Così fan tutte (Otto, Karajan) (1954) Naxos 8.111232-34. For details, see Così fan tutte (Herbert von Karajan recording)
Die Zauberflöte (Otto Klemperer) (1960) (EMI 5673852). She plays the First Lady.
Die Entführung aus dem Serail (Rudolf Moralt) (1949) (Gala GL100.501)

Puccini

Turandot as Liù (Tullio Serafin, La Scala Orchestra; 1957 EMI Classics) with Callas as Turandot

Johann Strauss II

Die Fledermaus (Gedda, Karajan) (1955) Naxos 8.111036-37
Der Zigeunerbaron (Gedda, Prey, Kunz) (1954 Otto Ackermann, Philharmonia Orchestra & Chorus) EMI Classics 67535 ADD monaural 2CDs: 56:00, 44:11

Richard Strauss

Der Rosenkavalier (Herbert von Karajan) (1956) (EMI 77357) The Marschallin was considered her signature-role.
Four Last Songs / Arabella (highlights) (Ackermann, Matacic) (1953, 1954) Naxos 8.111145
Four Last Songs (Szell; 1965; Warner Classics "Great Recordings of the Century"; Cat: 0724356696020)
Ariadne auf Naxos (Streich, Karajan) (1954) Naxos 8.111033-34
Capriccio (Christa Ludwig, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Nicolai Gedda, Wolfgang Sawallisch) (1957) Warner Classics CDS 7 49014-8

Verdi

Messa da Requiem (Di Stefano, De Sabata) (1954) Naxos 8.111049-50

Richard Wagner

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (Karajan) (1951) Naxos 8.110872-75

Video

She can be seen in two videotaped performances as the Marschallin:

Schwarzkopf Seefried Fischer-Dieskau, a black-and-white DVD of these three singers. Schwarzkopf performs the Act I Finale from Der Rosenkavalier, from a performance filmed in London, 1961. Published by Warner Classics, Catalog number DVB 4904429.
Der Rosenkavalier: the Film, a color videotape/DVD of a full length performance conducted by Herbert von Karajan with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra from the 1961 Salzburg Festival, featuring Sena Jurinac, Anneliese Rothenberger, Otto Edelmann and Erich Kunz; film directed by Paul Czinner. Published by KULTUR. ASIN: B0043988GM.

Notes and references

External links

Bach Cantatas biography
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Museum in Hohenems/Austria
BBC Obituary: Elisabeth Schwarzkopf
The Guardian (Alan Blyth) Obituary: Elisabeth Schwarzkopf
The Times Dame Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (obituary)
The Daily Telegraph Dame Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (obituary)
The Washington Post (Adam Bernstein) Renowned Coloratura Soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, 90 (obituary)
The Washington Post (Tim Page) The Plaintive Last Song of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (appreciation)
Norman Lebrecht: Schwarzkopf's Career Had Somber Side
BBC Soprano Schwarzkopf dies aged 90
BBC Diva's 'place in history assured'
The Guardian (Charlotte Higgins) Elisabeth Schwarzkopf dies at 90
Prewar photo of Schwarzkopf as Zerbinetta (scroll down)
Discography warnerclassics.com
Discography from sopranos.freeservers.com
Another Discography (Capon's Lists of Opera Recordings)